I seem to be a one of a very few Eagles fans not angry at Jason Avant at this point in time.

By now, everyone has heard Jason Avant’s comments about bandwagon Eagles fans. And my take is this: If you’re not a bandwagon fan, you should have no problems with what he said. Pretty simple to me. But nothing is every that cut and dry in Philadelphia sports fandom.

If you have been living in a cave, these are Avant’s comments to CSNPhilly’s Reuben Frank that have caused the furor:

“We look at home games like road games. We like to get booed by our fans.

“We realize it’s going to be just these guys in the locker room, that’s the way we take it. We don’t want people jumping on our bandwagon now. We want people to go out and still talk bad about us.”

Can someone please explain to me where in those comments Jason Avant disrespected Eagles fans? It was a bit of bravado, sure. But where did he say, “I don’t want any support from any of you, ever!”

The criticism has been so extreme that Avant again met with Frank on Thursday to clarify his comments. But he didn’t apologize. Because he has nothing to apologize for.

“Oh man listen, who am I to allow anybody back? Listen, I’m a guy who goes over the middle, and I don’t have any type of authority. Anybody is welcome back.”

Avant continued,

“Let’s get this clear – I will not apologize for what I said. It’s not an apology or anything like that,” Avant said. “What I’m saying is, is that there are faithful fans, faithful Eagles fans, we love those fans. … I’m trying to motivate my teammates to keep focused. We’ve got the underdog mentality and that’s my opinion. …

“All are welcome to root for the Eagles. … It’s that whether people boo us, whether people talk about us, we’re willing to play through hard situations and that’s what I mean by that. It’s not a shot at the fans, like it was taken, more so it’s about motivating my team to say we have to be able to go out under any circumstances and play hard like we did last week.”

Can we leave him alone now, people?

Apparently not. It is 8:15 am as I write this and Jason Avant is at present in the lead for Weasel of the Week on WIP. Seriously, people?

Let’s take this from the top. Again, I truly do not understand the “outrage” over Avant’s remarks. But let’s take this to a more basic level. It’s Jason flipping Avant. How can you be mad at him about anything? He is faith, grace, and gentleness personified.

And let’s get even more basic. It very well may be Avant’s leadership that played a large part in getting this Eagles team to wake up and fight when he called a players only meeting to rally the troops.

This situation is an example of the hills and valleys of any relationship, whether it be with close friends and family members or with people who have no idea you exist. There are perceived slights. You work through and move past them.

Let’s stop focusing on this faux issue and focus our attention to more important things. Like visualizing the defeat of the Chicago Bears on Monday Night.